Question: Wouldn't you think technology would cause poeple to become more fat because of what it will be able to do for us instead of us getting up to do it ourselves

Katie Pickering answered on 10 Nov 2014:

Great point and yes you are correct. Technology is largely to blame for the reason we are inactive and becoming more obese. However we have to acknowledge that technology is not going to go away! If anything as days go by we are gaining more and more technology so to simply try to get people to stop using it will never happen! We can advise of how to reduce the need for it e.g. TV viewing or just aimlessly searching on the internet, but in terms of needing technology in everyday life we need to see how we can turn it to our advantage as Public Health researchers. One way is through our Smartphones as this one device is a combination of many daily technology devices (phone, computer, camer, music player etc). The average person unlocks thier phone around 150 times per day! This means that we know we look at our phone screens a lot each day! Being able to have reminders and prompts messages sent to phones (by text, e mails, app notofcations etc) means that we can raise awareness. We also know that most people have around 10 apps on their phones as well.Having apps that guide people through how to become more active, help them set small goals to reach on a regular basis and provide instant feedback on their progress are all factors that we know help enourage people to be more active. Once a person starts to become active we also know that they are more likely to make other alterations to their lifestyle such as eat better, reduce TV viewing etc! Once we can help someone get started through technology they become more confident to be able to tackle the areas of their lifetsyle that they once thought to be too difficult to.
We can also use the features of technology and smartphones to teach people which exercises are good for them and how to perform them. We canpost videos on websites that can easily be accessed. This has the added benefit that people who don’t like the gym, don;t have time to get there or are self conscious can exercise at home where they feel more comfortable. So technology has great potential to help people be healthy and physically active.